While the Virginia men’s basketball team may have missed out on the services of forwards Jarin Stevenson (Alabama), Caleb Williams (Georgetown) and Isaiah Abraham, Tony Bennett and the Cavaliers still remain in the mix for a few very talented prospects they have offered for the Class of 2024, as well as another local rising star for 2025.
Christian Bliss, a 6-foot-4, 205-pound point guard (George School; Newtown, Pa.) who made his official visit to Charlottesville last Wednesday after also visiting Xavier last week, will be announcing his college choice on Friday at 5 p.m.
Bliss had recently trimmed his list to four potential suitors — the Cavaliers, Musketeers, Villanova and Miami. According to 247Sports’ most recent “Crystal Ball” prediction, UVA is the favorite to land the consensus four-star guard.
There’s a certain former Wahoo floor general who recently gave his endorsement on why Bliss should spend his next few years in Charlottesville, and that’s 2019 national champion and current Golden State Warrior Ty Jerome.
Jerome is in the area for his third annual youth basketball camp, being held at Albemarle High School, and he recently met with Bliss and the two shared a workout. Here’s what Jerome had to say about the potential of Bliss following in his footsteps and coming to UVA.
“I think it’d be awesome,” Jerome said. “I sat down with him for a while and I basically told him, ‘I can’t think of a better place to come in somewhere and really get better. You have all the tools here, you have a great strength coach, you have a great development staff. You have great coaches that pour into you every day. You have nutritionists — it’s a great support system.’
“So there’s a great culture, like I could go on and on and on, but I can’t think of a better place to really come and really get better and really grow as a person and a player. So I think that’s what his main goal is, I mean a lot of guys are thinking one and done, and I don’t think he is. He’s just thinking, he definitely wants to go to the NBA, but when it happens, it happens. And I think that’s the biggest message I would tell him, come in and focus on being a great college player and enjoying your college years.”
Sticking in the backcourt, UVA offered 2025 point guard Chance Mallory, a 5-foot-9 product from nearby St. Anne’s-Belfield School in Charlottesville on Tuesday (more on Mallory below).
Kon you dig it?
Bennett and his staff have also been locked in on another priority 2024 target in particular — sharpshooting wing Kon Kneuppel from Wisconsin.
Kneuppel has already visited UVA, both officially and unofficially. He has also being courted by Wisconsin, Marquette, Notre Dame, Stanford and several others, and that list is only expected to keep growing.
Kneuppel, a 6-5, 205-pound small forward from Wisconsin Lutheran School in Milwaukee, Wisc., had a huge summer session, leading the Nike EYBL in scoring at 25.5 points per game — on 46.7-percent shooting from downtown — as a member of “Phenom University.”
Duke has recently reached out, and Alabama is now in the mix with an offer as well. Kneuppel also holds offers from Michigan State, Ohio State, Illinois, Miami and USC. Don’t be surprised if several more big-name, high-major schools throw their name in the hat as well.
Kneuppel recapped his visit to Virginia in an interview with On3: “Coach Bennett is awesome. A great guy, a really top-notch guy. All the people over there are really good people. They play really hard, and you can tell they all play for their coach. That is something I do for sure. They share the ball, play the right way, and play great defense. That’s something that’s really admirable.”
Kneuppel said he is hoping to make his college choice in the fall, prior to his senior season. He visited Ohio State and Louisville earlier this month, and also plans to check out Wisconsin and Marquette before making his decision.
Other names on the board
Should the ‘Hoos miss on Bliss, there are still two other four-star guard offers on the table in the 2024 class — Travis Perry and Trent Perry (no relation). Travis (6-2, 170 pounds) is a point guard from Eddyville, Ky., and is rumored to be leaning toward the hometown Wildcats, while Trent (6-4, 175) is a combo guard from the Los Angeles area.
Virginia also still has offers on the table for 2024 big man Patrick Ngongba II (6-11, 235 pounds) from Paul VI in Fairfax and forward Rakease Passmore (6-5, 180 pounds) from Asheville, N.C.
Four-star 2024 combo guard Jaeden Mustaf, who also received an offer from Virginia last August, did not include the Cavaliers in his top five (Virginia Tech, NC State, Miami, Florida State, Indiana) in April. Abraham, meanwhile, a 6-7 four-star forward from Paul VI, left the Hoos out of his final list of Virginia Tech, UConn, Marquette and Providence last week.
Mallory getting his Chance
Mallory has been the talk of the last two DMV Live Showcase sessions, averaging 27 points a game and showing off his skillset with plenty of D-I head coaches and assistants in attendance to see what he’s capable of.
While he may be a bit undersized, a la Kihei Clark, Mallory certainly makes up for it with his IQ, vision, ball-handling, on-ball defense, scoring ability and overall toughness and leadership.
Other schools have already taken notice, as Mallory has racked up double-digit scholarship offers since the end of his sophomore season with the Saints, who won a school-record 27 games and advanced to their first VISAA Division I state championship game — all with Mallory running the show.
In the state finals against Paul VI, Mallory scored his 1,000th career point at STAB — he was a varsity starter by the end of his eighth-grade year, standing then at just 5-1. He connected on a school-record 82 3-pointers this past season. Mallory has recently been offered by Virginia Tech, VCU, Maryland, West Virginia, Iowa, Illinois, Butler, UCF and Seton Hall.
“There’s always going to be doubts about my size,” Mallory told CBS19’s Preston Willett, “but I just try to push that away and keep playing how I need to play.”
In one of his most recent DMV outings last week, he nearly recorded a triple double, putting up 25 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists. The very next day, Mallory even surprised his head coach, Damin Altizer, and his staff.
“We were like, how could he top that?,” said Altizer, who is also helping to run Jerome’s camp this week. “Next day, he turns around and has 30 (points) and 16 (rebounds), and we’re like, that’s how you top it.”
Altizer said his point guard deserves all of the recent attention, and pointed out that Mallory still has two more years to keep making a name for himself on the national recruiting scene.
“On so many fronts, it’s amazing,” said Altizer. “Especially with the transfer portal and there are so many kids who are scrambling, during or after their senior year. For him to not just already have those collegiate opportunities, but then for them to be high-major schools — Iowa and Maryland, Virginia Tech and UVA most recently — it’s what every kid dreams of.
“And for him to be only a rising junior, and obviously everybody talks about his height, 5-9, 5-10, for him to be able to have proven just how good, just how talented he is, and he can impact those teams eventually, it’s pretty surreal.”
Aside from Mallory, five-star power forward Bryson Tiller is currently the only other prospect from the ‘25 class to hold an offer from UVA, but the staff is busy looking for additional future prospects. Tiller, who hails from the Atlanta area, will be playing in the Overtime Elite league this season.
UVA has additionally offered a scholarship to 2026 big man Latrell Almond, a 6-8, 205-pounder from John Marshall High School in Richmond, back in January.
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